Quantum Leaps

[Grumpy Bear]

#4

 

Micha 7:3 NIV reads:

 

Both hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire-- they all conspire together.

 

I took a few years of marketing in my businesses courses. If you ever get the opportunity please do. An education all by itself.

 

Back in the day the marketing branch of a business was held in check by the legal department. Now it conspires with it. Does that sound to bold? I digress then. Back in the day a marketer took what was difficult, boring, dry, uncomfortable and made it exciting, eye catching, memorable, lively and comfortable. “Red” sports cars sell all colors of sports cars in example. But there are some things that can’t be ‘colored’ to make them appealing in the strict sense so they NOW color them with lies. Sometimes it plays on ignorance. Okay, almost always. One of my favorites is stamping “Gluten Free” on a package of chicken thighs. If that needs an explanation you can now leave the buss. Oh okay I’ll explain it. The statement itself is rooting in the idea that as chicken is an animal product and there are no glutens in flesh then the statement of Gluten Fee is a statement of the obvious thus not a lie.

 

That’s the legal stand. But what is a lie. A willful attempt to mislead and if KNOWINGLY stating the obvious to those ignorant of the obvious in an attempt to mislead, which it is, and results in that conclusion then it’s a lie. That’s the moral stance.

 

What these arguments hinge on is the word “Knowingly”. And since a marketer cannot know what you know without asking you he avoids not only asking you but…he avoids educating you to remove that ignorance. Neither is in his best interest because both of them expose his lie and make him liable for that statement.

 

Bottom line? Marketing has morphed from a class on expert salesmanship to a class on getting away with fraud and legally making it stick.

 

Does that sound all conspiracy theory? Okay. Then show me anywhere in your preferred suppliers literature where is states the truth about its composition. Before you start yelling “intellectual property” or “proprietary chemistry” exceptions to public disclosure laws take note that those not hiding are in fact telling. Syn-4-Life ring a bell. Red Line Oil ring any bells. They just don’t say ‘synthetic’ but they state WHICH synthetics.

 

Any oil company could and should state the base stock types and in order of volume like they do on food packaging. Why? So you get to make an informed choice based on the truth or as close as it’s going to be told. Would this hurt them? Only if they are dishonest to begin with. Why? Because as I’ve stated several times over this series…they all contain the same range of carbon structures if we are talking about crude sourced products. Their differences lie in the type, yes, but more importantly in the additive packages. Which is the only place they can distinguish themselves in performance and then…not so much.

 

Okay, it would hurt them and in this way. They could not charge you $10 a quart for a chemically stripping a Paraffin base oil and adding ½ percent ester in the additive packaging called a ‘Synthetic” because any fiver year old knows better. Ignorance is removed and that boys and girls is the real reason for the language the law used to define the terms that lobby dollars bought and paid for. They paid to keep you ignorant and your wallet open.  

 

[Grumpy Bear]

#5

 

I have no idea what it is about people that leads them to hold on to whatever it is that is hurting them. I’m a prime example. I tried water skiing…once. Took off just fine then BOOM, tips of the skis went under and so did I. I’m about 15 feet down ears popping being drug like a fishing lure and it dawns on me…LET GO STUPID!!!! It wasn’t that it happened more quickly than my reflexes could respond to. It was my mind saying…the rope is safe…it will bring you back up. I’ll pause while you laugh.

 

We have in our noggin our beliefs and to change one is difficult. And do you know which beliefs are the hardest to let go of? The ones that are wrong. Yea, you figure that out and there’s an Einstein award waiting for you. It takes a second to believe a well-constructed lie and a life time to learn the truth. Some of the biggest lies in automotive circles told are about oil and gasoline. Yes, yes and everyone is an expert. Perhaps you think I’m pretending to be one. I’d understand that. Just another fella at a keyboard banging away that constant nonstop drivel. Just more mud in the water.

 

I gave this allot of thought as I contemplated what it was I wanted to write for installment five. Things like…I have my entire forty year plus working life invested in the oil/gas/chemical arena. I’m educated well enough. I’m published. I’m (was) a stationary power plant & operating engineer. I have over six decades of life experience. I’m not selling anything. I’m not affiliated with anyone who could profit. I don’t care about anything but the truth. I like to be helpful to others. And yet here’s the problem. The biggest liars in the business can say the exact same thing. Nothing sets me apart enough to change a single mind. Then I asked myself…is that what I want? Someone to change their mind? Hum…not really all that important. It has no effect on me. To be seen as ‘worthwhile’ or to be liked? Even less important. I know who I am. To be heard? Oh hell no. Then why?

 

Because I learn from the experience things that benefit me and mine. Bottom line is I don’t turn over rocks for worms to bait someone else’s hook. Especially those that toss the food, when caught, in the dirt and smirk. I’m hungry and want to eat and no one is serving me food (information) than doesn’t stink like three day old fish and it makes me mad.

 

There are exactly two people in the Universe I give a hard listen to. God and my Father. They’ve both been around longer than I have. One gives me life the other gave it to me. One wrote the rule books for the universe and the other taught me how to read and use them. If I write it down I’ll remember it.

[Grumpy Bear]

#6

Let’s make this useful instead of a rehash of rehash. A short process description then what you get. It will surprise you.  500 words or less.

Group 1 Base Stock Motor Oil:

Remember in math class that all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares? Motor oil is in all crude oils but not all crude is motor oil. Same concept. Alkanes, Naphthenes, Aromatics and Asphaltics are in all crudes but in much different proportions. All require the same process but to varying degree. In addition they contain sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen compounds and heavy metals. The process looks loosely like but not restricted to:

Sedimentation. Crude is allowed to stand quite to separate out water and solids.

Atmospheric Fractional Distillation. Rough cuts that separate lube oil from gasoline and asphalt…in VERY broad strokes. It also removes a good deal of heavy wax or paraffin.

Solvent Extraction. This strips out the solvent soluble Aromatic compounds in the C8 to C32 range such as Benzene. This raises the viscosity index making a more stable and useful lubricating compound whose viscosity proper changes less with temperature. The very definition for Viscosity Index. It still contains a good deal of oxygen and nitrogen compounds and some sulfur.

Filtration: Like you can’t imagine. Hydraulically forced through clay filters finer than fine. In the micro micron range.

Additive additions and packaging. Self-explanatory.

What you get: is a basic lubricant that is up to task but with some very restrictive boundaries. Those boundaries are time and temperature. The reactives make them prone to sludge formation and oxidation and acid formation. Both nitric and sulfuric. But listen closely. Not in the beginning. These are processes that happen as a result of temperature over time. This means they are not long drain products and degrade rapidly with heat and it doesn’t take allot to start the process. Without chemical help from the additive package the range is topped about 150 F bulk oil temperature.

Those nasty photo’s people show you of gummed up rocker covers and two inch thick oil pan sludge didn’t happen when the product was poured into the motor and won’t happen if heat is held in check and the fluid is filtered, and drained BEFORE this happens.

Caution: These are inexpensive oils and as such the breeding ground of liars and thieves. Buy cheap but please buy a major.

Dad and Grandad still used this type of oil when I was small. They changed it every 1500 to 2000 miles in water cooled and every 500 in air cooled and neither was a terror on equipment and have very good success with it. Later in life I’ve watched guys turn straight 50 weight into coke in under 50 miles in air cooled Norton Twins.

The Lie: Abused oil was and is the focal point for those marketers who are ‘upselling’ and the lie being told is that it will happen when the truth is, it can happen…to those who abuse oil.

[Grumpy Bear]

#7

Group 2 Base Stock Motor Oil:

Everything that happens to Group 1 happens to Group II but before filtration comes…

Hydro finishing:

The refiners preference is to use Atmospheric Column products. They contain the least wax and reactives and some can be used with little solvent treating. Reality is there isn’t enough naturally occurring base to do this so a lower cut of the Atmospheric column feeds a Vacuum Column. At lower pressures the boiling points are lower and further fractions can be driven off in the lube oil range but they contain far more sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen compounds and hydro finishing removes a good deal of those. Wax is lower. In fact dewaxing is often a separate step.

And there are allot of processes and degrees of intensity for this step reflective of the crudes chemical makeup and the refinery goals. Heat, pressure and hydrogen plus a catalyst remove sulfur, oxygen and nitrogen compounds. It is the same concept and hydrocracking but less severe. It is harsh enough however to fully saturate all carbon chains. No open oxygen sites or hydroxyl groups remain in any significant numbers.

Filtration, Additive additions and packaging. Self-explanatory.

What you get: About the same viscosity index as Group 1 base oils with the highly reactive compounds removed AND it is largely dewaxed. It will take a bit more of a beating. More thermally stable and will take more heat and for longer periods of time. It leaves behind less corrosive compounds because it has fewer sites to initiate them. Normally lighter in color.

Caution: Few are pure Group II stocks. Most are blends of both Groups I & II. I call these 3000 mile oils. That said it does depend greatly on, once again, heat and time.

The Lie: Like Group I marketing likes to play this group down with photos and testimonials of ‘what if’s’ to sell premium products such as Synthetic Blends. Which are pure marketing hype. There isn’t any legal standard for the amount of synthetic required to be called a synthetic blend, only a legal minimum. 5% is that minimum.

Truth is Group II ain’t half bad if heat is kept in check and time is reasonable. A step up from Group I. It will take more bulk oil temperature and leave fewer deposits too. No current motor with a thermostat over 192 F is capable of running sump temperatures low enough without some major oil cooling. Same rules as Group I. Load it moderately. Cool it and/or change it frequently and it will work fine. You have to decide on cost effectiveness.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Grumpy Bear
typo

[Grumpy Bear]

#8

Group 3 Base Stock Motor Oil:

Everything that happens to Group 1 happens to Group III but instead of hydro  finishing it is hydrocracked.  

Hydro Cracking:

Again a process of heat, pressure, hydrogen and catalyst. More severe and at higher temperatures with an added goal. Carbon chain reorganization. Selective carbon chain targeting with the elimination of more unstable groups converted to stable groups. A form of Isomerization. This step ups the viscosity index quite a bit and really adds a boost to heat tolerance. Nearly wax free and about as pure as it gets if done well.  

Filtration, Additive additions and packaging. Self-explanatory.

What you get: A brighter clearer stock with a greatly improved viscosity index and much higher resistance to thermal and oxygen related breakdown. Many of these are Dexos approved. I’m personally not comfortable with that for Ecotec3 types or anything with a 200+F thermostat.  

Caution: This is not the holy grail but about as good as it can get for ‘normally’ processed hydrocarbon stocks.

The Lie: It’s a synthetic. Bigger lie is there is a drive to get the public to see them the same as a POA.

Truth is you could theoretically distil a very comparable base stock with very careful fractional distillation, it would just cost a king’s ransom to do it. It is also the material used in Synthetic Blends. They are in fact not the same as a POA.

Additional information. This is the group I use in almost everything with a 192 F or lower thermostat that can hold a bulk oil temperature under 212 F. 5,000 mile change intervals.

Group IV Base Stock Motor Oil:

I’ve covered POA’s chemistry in an earlier post so I won’t bore you with 500 words repeated. I will add this. This group is even more selective in chain length but mostly in chain type than Group III and gets a real bump in thermal stability than can be impressive as well as a nice pour point reduction that requires less additives.

The Lie: It can handle 300 F + bulk oil temperatures and is considered a normal ‘safe’ operating temperature. All Mobil 1 products are not POA’s. It’s just a name now and they aren’t saying.

Truth is, Saying it can handle 300 F is like saying air is bullet resistant. A truth told to mislead is still a lie. Keep is under 220 F and you have a 7500 mile lubricant. Ecotec3 motors are seriously pressing the limits of these base oils. Sump temperatures can be 40 to 70 degrees higher than the water temperature with water to oil coolers in the radiators. Your thermostat is 207 F +/- 3 F. Adding 210 to 70 gives a bulk temp of 280 F…if everything is perfect. Load your truck up with a heavy uphill load and 300 F is not just possible, it’s likely. Is Amsoil the only product in this space now?

[Grumpy Bear]

Conclusion to this series.

This whole series has been about as rough and dirty as it gets. Filthy actually. You could take exception to just about any point and find a refinery specific case to refute a specific statement and win your argument. That isn’t why I did this series. That’s what marketing does. That’s the point.

Marketing and lobbies have done a masterful job of hiding what exactly is in that bottle. The SAE has done a cowardly job of not taking a stand on definitions of words, like synthetic or the setting of a standard such as the amount of synthetic required to be called a blend. Is there a real difference between Full Synthetic and 100% Synthetic? Oh yes there is.

This is the umpteenth time I’ve rewritten this post looking for the right words. They just aren’t there. I’m not that vile. So……

I can tell you what happens in the ground, at the well, in the tank and in the refinery. I can tell you how it’s blended and packaged. What I can’t tell you is what is in that bottle you holding in your hand. Not unless the wording is very specific and about one in a hundred are. That leaves the buyer with two choices.

1.)        A really small list of  “I’m reasonably sure” viable products.

2.)        Remain blissfully ignorant.

That’s on the buy side. You also have two choices on the user side.

1.)        Remain blissfully ignorant and get what you get.

2.)        Work with what you do know.

What do you (better) know?

1.)        You know that no matter how well refined a lubricant is or what group it belongs to it is subject to breakdown with heat and time. Yes even esters.

2.)        Thermal or oxygen breakdown causes a change in viscosity. Up or down. Because:

3.)        Depending on time in the tank, heat and load; hydroxyls, acid and particulates and if degraded badly enough sludge is generated. Shear thickening or thinning depending on additive packages and base stocks.

4.)        Heat attacks the most susceptible molecules in the can (lowest base oil group) so you have to treat the whole can like it’s the lowest rung on the ladder.  

5.)        You have no idea what that lowest rung is.

    Control the heat.

You know that viscosity is subject to temperature. Lowering the cooling side temperature increases operational viscosity. That suggest that a lighter oil can possibly have the same or higher viscosity than the uncooled oil does and it does. It isn’t really a suggestion. That is just physics at work.

Three things you (better) know about Detroit:  

1.)        When Detroit specified your oil viscosity grade they were telling you what viscosity range is required at what they know to be the operating temperature of their design. Oblige them. Measure, do the math, make your selection. Error on the side of caution.

2.)        Detroit has a much different set of goals for your truck than you do. Government regulations and greed. If they wont tell you what’s in the bottle or give access to the information you need, such as a working oil temperature gauge, they ARE hiding the truth and they do know what’s in it. Even the OBD II hidden oil temperature gauge is ‘estimated’. “Trust me your oil temperatures fine”., works only if you’re always telling the truth. BTW, it isn’t fine at all. It’s scary.

3.)        They care about their money and government reprisals. The only part of your money the care about is how much of it they can obtain.

 A bit over 500 words.

[Grumpy Bear]

Dad, then 88 years young and his two younger brothers accompany myself and my youngest brother to a farm show. Steam show actually were a pretty good history of farm tractors and belt powered equipment is on display yearly. Dad had never been there so we treated him and our uncles.   

On display this particular day was a pretty little Oliver 88 circa 1947. My grandfather had one much like it. Dad grew up with it. A nice ground up restoration by a younger man, perhaps thirty-ish who was rightfully quite proud of his work. He had done a fine job. She was a looker. Sadly she sat there idling at an ear wrenching cadence typical of a carburetor running less than ideal, timing a bit off and the idle a shade low. The young man looked concerned and searching. This sort of thing runs my dad round the bend when it is so easy to fix. Felling a bit sorry for both the tractor and the owner pop’s pulls a quarter from his pocket and walks toward the suffering beast reaching for the mixture screw and advance lever when the youngster barks at him telling dad that he had spent days fretting out the ‘tune up’ and to just leave it be.

He heatedly adds how little information is available which lead to a whole hours internet search and a three minute YouTube video that guided him in rendering due diligence to the task he had now pronounced complete; rudely dismissing my father’s history, ability, experience and his kind attempt to help to which he was witness to but one. It draws a crowd but fails to rattle dad. Smiling he puts the quarter back in his pocket. I knew what was about to happen. I also knew what would have happened fifty years earlier.

A pregnant pause later dad says to the fella, “So you think you’ve managed to learned more in an hour keyboarding than I did in nearly ninety years on the farm? Fine. ”, and turns his back to walk away.

“Mister”, he calls out, “please…continue”. He’s red faced by the crowds giggles.

The quarter comes out and finds its mark while his other hand bumps the timing lever and in about twenty seconds she’s purring like a kitten with a bowl of warm milk.

“My kids got kids older than you”, he muses under his breath directing his comment to my good ear.

Out loud he says, “Your welcome”, and walks to the next display tossing the fella the quarter.

The on lookers shake their heads and disperse. It is an older crowd.

Makes me wonder why I bother…and why he continues to. No one values experience and old age anymore. 

[RubiconJoey]

On 12/5/2016 at 5:32 PM, Grumpy Bear said:

People don’t do what you expect. They do what you inspect. So I’m told.

Take VW for example

[Grumpy Bear]

4 hours ago, RubiconJoey said:

Take VW for example

Good example. 

[Grumpy Bear]

The suspension makeover on my RCSB turned out amazing with a great deal of planning, listening to and largely ignoring of popular opinion.

 

People have a ‘laid in stone’ way of thinking that’s been handcuffed by what the OEM’s bean counters have dictated and the buying public has accepted as ‘normal’ truck ride quality.

 

Give that some thought. It’s normal because they sold it and you accepted it. Well kids it ain’t normal at all. It’s bean counter engineering at its absolute worst. Not only is the factory ride hideous. It’s dangerous.

 

One can’t really appreciate how bad even the best OEM shocks are or how little effect expensive aftermarket shocks can have on a really terrible system of compromised factory choices. Not until you experience better.

 

Even when the public accepts it as normal, no one truly likes it. If they did there would not exist a multi-billion dollar aftermarket industry. Like it or not the public at large is ignorant of what is possible from capable engineering. What is your frame of reference other than the worst possible existing designs. More to the point, what would be your reference for the ‘best’ engineering could produce? Without that you have no idea how truly awful OEM is.

 

It’s why I ignored popular opinion. Consumer reviews and forum majorities. Let’s face it. For the most part they are a collection of personal likes and dislikes that have zero base in anything but preference. A thousand individuals with zero expertise offering comment about what they like. That doesn’t even work if you poll what flavor ice cream is ‘best’.

 

What I like is what I can measure and what I can measure isn’t subject to opinion or given likes. It’s subject to physics. Now that’s trustable.

 

When I first bough this truck I stopped at a Casey’s and grabbed a medium fountain drink. Put it in the cup holder and off I went Well a few miles from there is a set of tracks I’ve crossed hundreds of times in the Buick without so much as a ruffled feather. Smooth? Not at all but not the worse the county has to offer either. Middle of the road rough. That drink exited the holder, hit the ceiling and sprayed that drink all over the interior of the cabin. The sound it made was frightening and for a second I thought I hit something unseen…like a boulder, or worse been hit.

 

Last night I crossed the tracks with a cuppa coffee in the holder. I’m not stupid. It was in a clear covered cup.  Barely a ripple. Is that a scientific measurement? Likely not but it is comfortable.

 

I’m going to be like this as I am about most things. The only person I have to convince is myself. Believe it or not. It is what it is. It’s a truck that rides like a car and hauls/tows like a truck. And that’s what I get for ignoring opinion and listening to science.

[Grumpy Bear]

“Man I wish I would have known that”!

 

Bet you said it a million times. Bet you said it right after something you did resulted in something you didn’t like. Here’s an interesting reference:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9959026/Mothers-asked-nearly-300-questions-a-day-study-finds.html

 

Why do we ask questions? The obvious answer is to learn something we don’t know. Well a least that’s the reason a two year old does. Grownups have agenda’s sometimes. Anyway for a minute let’s assume the best.  

 

Getting a question answered to your satisfaction is quite different from getting the correct answer to your question. What I have trouble with in the forum experience is understanding which answer the ask is looking for; one that satisfies or one that is correct. Yes they can certainly be the same thing but…rarely is that the case.

 

For an answer to be satisfying the answer usually needs to make sense to us within the context of our current knowledge and experience. For an answer to be correct however, it suffers no such scrutiny. In fact the correct answer often and powerfully violates our “current knowledge and experience”. Perhaps even our moral sense. Why is that? A rhetorical question. If you don’t know something and wish it eagerly enough to give the ask then why must it bound to your current knowledge and experience? Pride and ego come to mind. No one likes to be wrong. Few like to be corrected. No one likes to be embarrassed by their own ignorance.

 

I guess that means that to accept a correct answer, or even a different wrong answer you have to be willing to be wrong. An in the forum structure you have to be willing to be wrong publicly. That is called I believe humility. Not a suit most humans these day were long. Well if someone is willing to hang their arse out like that in search of knowledge it seems to me that is worth giving them the best possible answer. And what would that answer be? The correct one.

 

It isn’t what is offered often enough. We have allot of WAGS and some personal preferences. Occasionally a raft of anecdotal evidence. Talking out your arse is common enough. Hard facts and satisfying useful answers are rare as hens teeth. But sometimes you stumble over one or two buried in the rubble of some Q&A disaster. More often than not in a thread that has nothing to do with the question you have in mind. Those make me smile like finding a white truffle in a pigpen.

 

Sometimes the best answer is, “I don’t know”. Silence is a fair substitute.

[Grumpy Bear]

Whatever!

Longevity – Reliability – Safety – Economy – Utility – Comfort – Looks

At the top of page three of my build thread I made the above list of areas for modification and pretty much in order of what I thought then were my priorities. As wise King Solomon said at Eccl 9:11, (Byington)

I came back seeing under the sun that the race does not go to the swift…….time and chance happen to all of them.

Money, opportunity, events all have reshaped this lists order and certainly it has become apparent there is a great deal of overlap. For instance the suspension covered safety, comfort and looks. Bed liner covered utility and longevity. Longevity, reliability and economy fit nicely together under the cooling and lubrication changes.

That aside there is little I’ve done to this truck outside some minor cosmetics that has changed the look much at all. But underneath all that nothing is a truck transformed. The Mrs. doesn’t spend much time in it so she notices more than I the degree of change when she does and comment on it she has. I mentioned to her that I felt GM could do the exact same thing if they put a mind to it and her reply was the corporate canned, “That truck would cost ten thousand more than it does if it rolled out like that from the factory”.

Oh! I spent RETAIL about $4500 on this suspension paying my wrench his full due and hundreds in shipping cost and taxes. Why then would it cost a manufacture that has access to economies of scale twice that price to deliver a truck of like construction? It wouldn’t. If fact to replicate this in the production environment would cost pennies on the dollar. So that begs the question…Why not then?

Because at the corporate level it isn’t about making a profit for the shareholders. It’s about making an obscene profit at the expense of the customer base. They are the shareholders.

Who am I to say? The guy who did what they wouldn’t at a cost that is multiples of their floor cost. This is how you run rats out of a woodpile.

If I hear, “It would double the cost of the truck to do it right” again I’m going to laugh as hard as I can and reply…Whatever!   

[Grumpy Bear]

Catch 212

The first of Euclid’s five common notions states that:

Things which equal the same thing are also equal one another.

Such that if X = Z and Y = Z, then X = Y

It’s self-evident! No one need tell anyone these things. And yet…denial of such truth is sadly common.

Just who is willing to explain to a five year old that the truth is, the replacement bear you offer in comfort is the same as the bear they lost in the fire? No one? Well…one may excuse the child’s emotional attachments that cloud the truth but the adult…?

The thing about truth is you might not believe it for a dozen different reasons, and guess what? It just doesn’t care! You get the pay the consequences anyway.

Here a truth, it is marketing’s number one job to take advantage of  your willingness to ignore truth. THAT is self-evident.

Their number one tool is ‘creating fear and doubt’.

How else could you sell anyone a beer can and three feet of garden hose for $400 !

I don’t know if this is sad or George Carlin funny. Go to the greatest depths to explain in a way that the truth becomes painfully self-evident and the result becomes……self-evident….it is ignored.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Grumpy Bear

[Grumpy Bear]

Longer lasting than yesteryear.

That’s what I hear. Mostly from those that were not there. I was. 60's that is. True, 100K was considered a milestone not often reached by the masses. There were exceptions. Almost anything my father bought new and maintained himself went 350K as a general rule before he got bored with it and sold it. Uncle Bob had a million on his C cab with one rebuild. Ditto his brothers and my cousins. Men of our last name were not permitted in the ‘big boys’ club unless that nut could be cracked…and we all did. Even those without mechanical aptitude.

No fancy elixirs. No super additives. No catch cans. Just practical and faithfully timely maintenance done with trusted products and a deft hand. We drove them hard but not stupid and abusive. Dad at 89 still maintains my sisters 300,000 mile Olds Aurora and her husband drives it like it’s a new one. Meaning without reservation. He never worries that it might not make this trip or that distance is too far to drive. His parents live in Ecuador.

When a young man dad was a diehard Ford guy; all of the kids were. Now it’s GM. If you ask him why he will tell you that either will go the distance but the GM will do it with few looks under the hood. He’d say, “Motor don’t know what names on the valve cover”!

Every once in a while he would get a screwball thing happen. Mom’s 67 Galaxy ate a motor. She sheared an oil pump drive on a cold morning and took it to church anyway. Can hardly blame the car for that one. Or her for that matter.

Detroit comes and goes with style, workmanship, quality and just plain old give a hoot. If you haven’t seen the full cycle you just haven’t lived long enough yet. There’s more shine on the bobble these days but the crow it hangs on is still a crow.

Know what the difference is between a 69 454 Chevelle SS and anything that can hang it on a hook today? I could afford one and it was one of many by every manufacture. Yep a Hell-Cat will dust it or could if I could get my hands on one. If fact cars like that were literally a check mark on the order form. Yea, you heard me right, an order form. Custom built from a list of options YOU choose and are not thrust upon you.

Was that a good trade for lane departure and forward crash assistance?

Only if you believe that the responsibility of the driving privilege is someone else’s to bear. I mean why should it be up to you to keep it in your lane, eyes and mind on what’s happening with that two ton missile you’re driving. Especially if you can get others to chip in buying gadgets that eliminate that responsibility and have it mandated by law to do what common sense demands.

[Grumpy Bear]

Luxury. 

My father never had much money but was an honest hard working guy any boy could be proud of. Mostly that meant he did a whole lot of making due with what he had to work with. Being of modest means in no way implies one cannot appreciate luxury or that luxury is out of reach. That sir is a belief of a snob. Luxury isn’t about what something cost or even what it’s made of. More about how it’s made in this sense;

Luxury is perceived by the senses. No matter how much means you have you can’t buy a tastier loaf of bread than my grandmothers made from the grain grandpa grew. A better pork chop that the ones grandpa raised and butchered and grandma prepared. Better coffee than my mother made in a saucepan.

Grandmother and her daughter, my aunt Marcella made gowns and wedding dresses of finer quality and better needle work than the most prestigious designers in the world. Never were paid their worth nor given their due. And it didn’t matter. They weren’t snobs. The people they did these things for were friends and neighbors whose children they watched grow up they felt deserved the due of the Queen.  

My cousin Larry was born deprived of his life of normality due to a delivery error. While he lived to be near 40 in his mind he was always two. But he was special in a way that would make you want to be around him. When that boy hugged you, you felt loved. That’s luxury.

Dad would buy guns to hunt the food we ate and grew the vegetables we canned and lived on. Mostly from estate auctions from farmers he’d known or were neighbors. He would never own a $100,000 Purdey side by side but the beat to death relics he resurrected would make you believe he could have traded for one. Modest doesn’t mean without talent and he was born with enough to pass along. He did mostly by teaching the way a farmer teaches. With exacting perfection to detail. The phrase “good enough” is unacceptable if better is attainable with a bit more effort. A bit more polish. You get one shot at this year’s crops. It’s next year’s resources. It might not even be that if your sharecropping.

A shirt made of Egyptian cotton or Japanese silk isn’t luxury. A good pressing and perfect fit are. They make polymers these days that are soft as Chinchilla that cost pennies a yard. They make $300 dollar shirts with fancy labels made of these in factories were the labor is feed from troughs and wages traded for twelve to a room dwellings. Commercial luxury is an illusion of printed plastic wood trims and rubber pebbled dashes.

Luxury is a hand fitted door lock that is smooth as silk on a babies bottom. Panel lines that are even and straight. Adjustments perfected and finishes cleaned polished to glass. Luxury is in the execution and the care not in the cost and limit of supply.

If it were I ask you this. How many lives do you have? Limit exactly one. That's Luxury.